The Federal Bureau of Prisons is offering retention-based federal pay incentives to correctional officers and other critical frontline positions, in an attempt to address longstanding understaffing across the agency.

The upcoming retention bonuses will take effect in February, according to an all-staff message BOP Director William K. Marshall III sent Monday.

“These retention incentives are about keeping the experience in our institutions while we throw everything we have to deliver reinforcements and bring relief to an exhausted workforce,” Marshall wrote in the Jan. 5 email, viewed by Federal News Network.

The BOP for years has faced significant workforce challenges, including persistent understaffing and high use of overtime. The Government Accountability Office once again named the management of the federal prison system as an item on its 2025 high-risk list, in part due to the workforce issues at BOP.

Retention incentives are one way federal agencies can try to address challenges with keeping employees in their jobs — and it’s a tactic that BOP has used for years. Generally, agencies provide the pay incentives to federal employees in positions that are considered hard to fill. The pay increases are distributed over a certain time period and up to a certain percentage, as long as the employee meets the incentive requirements.

“We will continue to pursue special salary rates for hard to fill positions where they make sense and will have the greatest impact,” Marshall wrote.

Using retention incentives is a temporary pay fix — federal regulations state that agencies must review the bonuses annually to determine if they are still needed. Agencies are required to terminate incentives when the conditions that warranted the incentives in the first place no longer apply.

Because the incentives are susceptible to being revoked, some have advocated for larger pay fixes for the BOP workforce. A representative with the American Federation of Government Employees, speaking anonymously for fear of professional retaliation, called for the implementation of an across-the-board, permanent federal pay increase for all frontline BOP staff.

“While the retention incentives are appreciated, it’s doing nothing for us long-term. You’re attracting them, but you’re not retaining them. Within two years, they could say, ‘I’ve met my requirement,’ and then leave us to go to a different agency,” the union representative told Federal News Network. “We have to fix the pay structure to incentivize people to stay.”

The new incentives also come as BOP correctional officers are expected to receive a 3.8% federal pay raise, as part of President Donald Trump’s orders for a larger 2026 pay increase for certain law enforcement personnel.

But the AFGE official said that leaves other critical BOP positions, such as psychologists and nurses, with the smaller 1% raise — something that will likely sow tension among the frontline employees.

“The agency is putting a divide in our workforce — a lot of people in the field are just genuinely frustrated that the agency would take one group and pay them a certain amount and not the others,” the union official said. “This causes such a wedge.”

The upcoming federal pay incentives are a departure from BOP’s actions last March, when the agency reduced, and in some cases fully removed, retention incentives for certain correctional officers and other BOP staff. At the time, BOP said the decision to remove the incentives was made in an effort to address budget shortfalls. But the resulting pay cuts led some employees to leave their jobs.

Now, the value of the upcoming retention pay incentives depends on the employee’s position and location, as well as the staffing levels at that specific BOP facility. BOP defined three “tiers” of institutions, based on staffing levels, to determine the size of the bonus.

“Tier 1 and tier 2 institutions represent our most critically understaffed locations and will receive the strongest support,” Marshall wrote.

For instance, correctional officers at “tier 1” institutions will receive a 10% pay bonus, while correctional officers at “tier 2” institutions will receive a 5% pay bonus.

Meanwhile, all mid-level practitioners and psychologists — regardless of location — will receive a 25% retention bonus, the BOP email shows. All lieutenants, registered nurses and special education teachers will receive a 10% bonus.

Any BOP employees who are eligible for a new retention incentive, but who are already receiving an incentive, will maintain only the higher of the two values, at least until the end of September.

In his all-staff message, Marshall encouraged more BOP staff members to become correctional officers, saying that “those who choose that path will be eligible for the same special salary rates and location-based incentives while gaining the critical skills necessary to strengthen the security of our institutions.”

The post Bureau of Prisons seeks to address low retention with federal pay incentives first appeared on Federal News Network.